wythall radio club

Not long to go now before one of the events of the year in the Wythall Radio Club Christmas Calendar.

Our in-house Christmas Contest started from small beginnings and is now a major part of the club’s calendar. Some amateurs have been known to join our club just to take part in it!

The idea is to work as many members as possible every day from 2000 on Christmas Eve till 2000 on New Year’s Day.  It is not quite as straightforward as it seems though and there are bonuses to be gained for using different bands and modes as well as going portable, mobile and operating from each other’s houses!

The G7OJO Trophy & the 2m Trophy

To win, you have to be active and available on the bands over the Christmas period – as if it wasn’t busy enough as it is!  The section winners are presented with the G7OJO Trophy (for all bands) and the 2 Meter Trophy (for members using 144 MHz only.)

This Tuesday 17th December, there is a presentation by Contest Supremo Lee G0MTN about the history and development of the Contest and on the innovations introduced in recent years, which will include more on the latest updates to our fantastic logging spreadsheet which scores you automatically!

It will be a fascinating evening for sure. So be there at 2030 this Tuesday 17th December in the Club Shack. It will be full, so arrive early!

Regular readers to this website will be aware that Wythall Radio Club’s motto is “Having Fun with RF”. Well, this weekend, we will doing the polar opposite and “having fun without RF”!

The reason for this is that this Saturday, 14th December, is a very special date in Wythall Radio Club’s Calendar. It is the date for our annual Christmas Party! Members come along and bring friends & family and we have a lot of fun together!

We hire one of the larger rooms (with bar of course!) at Wythall House and have a mixture of excellent food and drink (in the “American Supper” style), live entertainment, games, raffles, and even a skittle alley!

Great chat, a relaxed friendly atmosphere and a “no pressure” environment, it’s the perfect way to start the festive season off with friends.

The party starts from 1900 in the Britannia Room at Wythall House, Sliver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ.

Hot on the heels of Wythall Radio Club’s appearance in Practical Wireless magazine, the club is now featuring in the RSGB’s monthly magazine RadCom.

The January 2014 issue is being delivered to all RSGB members this week and features Wythall Radio Club on pages 68 & 69 under the title “Amateur Radio at its Very Best”. The article is about our activation of G100RSGB and the visit to the station of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Sajid Javid MP.

As well as featuring in the main G100RSGB article, our group of female operators also makes an appearance on page 84 in the West Midlands Regional News section of RadCom. They are pictured in somewhat frivolous mood, in keeping with our club motto of “having fun with RF”!

Our thanks to RadCom’s editor Elaine Richards G4LFM  for reminding us of some of the great bits of the fun time we had with the G100RSGB callsign.

With so much going on at Wythall Radio Club just at the moment, it almost escaped notice that eight intrepid members travelled down the M40 last Saturday to represent the West Midlands at the famous Martin Lynch Hog Roast.

Arriving around 0900 (just in time for bacon sandwiches!) were Chairman Mike G4VPD, Secretary Anita M6DUO & Treasurer Ian M0IDR – also along for the ride were Committee Members Phil 2E0WTH, Jim 2E0BLP & Pete M5DUO. Ordinary members Dave G3YXM & Chris G7DDN completed the party.

A great time was had by all, but then since a picture tells a thousand words, just click on the pics below and you will see for yourself. No explanations necessary!

The question is, will Martin and his staff want to see the rabble again next year?

You could be forgiven for thinking that certain members of Wythall Radio Club are only interested in food! What with curry nights, party nights and barbecues, we certainly know how to enjoy ourselves!

However, this Saturday 30th November, it is not our turn to host but to be the visitors – it is time for our annual trip to Chertsey to visit our friendly Ham Radio dealer Martin Lynch and his family and staff.

Every year he puts on a Bacon sandwich breakfast and a Hog Roast lunch for any radio enthusiasts who wish to visit his shop in Surrey. Last year we had a fantastic time, enjoying the company of friends old and new as well as inadvertently purchasing too much radio equipment! Oops…

This Saturday we will be winging our way down the M40 again and looking forward to seeing the folk we have got to know better over the year – and it is still a banker that several members will be returning with something heavy in the car boot!

One of the slightly better things about the dark evenings here in the UK is that indoor activities take more of a centre stage. That is certainly the case this week at Wythall Radio Club, as our meeting on Tuesday sees us re-living some of the lighter nights and warmer days by taking a look back at our Field activities this year. 

Paul 2E0ULC has been putting together some videos from his camcorder, which was running most of the time during VHF and HF SSB Field Days and this is the week that Wythall Radio Club Members will gather to watch the fruit of his labour!

Visitors are of course very welcome – the meeting starts at 2030 in the Club shack at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ.

Perhaps we will see you there?

It may even have escaped the more eagle-eyed members of Wythall Radio Club that this year has seen the release of a new Amateur Radio Band here in the UK.

472 kHz has been granted to us after quite a few years of experimentation under a Notice of Variation to the licence on 501 kHz.  472 kHz is at the bottom end of the old Medium Wave band and probably constitutes new territory for many amateurs, not just “Wythallians”. 

To help unravel the mystery of MF operation, RadCom columnist and low bands expert (and Wythall Radio Club member, we should add!) Dave G3YXM is giving a presentation this coming Tuesday at the Club. He will be opening up the mysteries of this band and explaining just how we can get active on it.

Strangely this talk coincides with an article in the just-released December RadCom magazine where Mike G3XDV writes about the very same topic. They must have been watching our club calendar to time their articles to fit in with us!

So why not pop along on Tuesday 19th November at 2030 to the Club Shack, Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ? Visitors as always are very welcome.

Now that Wythall Radio Club members are beginning to “wake up” again after the efforts of putting on G100RSGB(!), here is a gallery of a few photos from our activation of the event.

Feel free to browse and click for full size pictures – captions will give you a little more information about each one.

We are hoping to post a video of our two days of operation soon too, so keep checking this site for more information!

Members of Wythall Radio Club are still buzzing about our time with the G100RSGB callsign (see entires below!)

Now our technical wizards have grabbed the webcam stills that were being taken every minute or so during our activation and you can re-live the 2 days of operation on YouTube!

Just click on this link for Webcam 1 and this link for Webcam 2.  Webcam 1 had a great view of a radio controlled clock and you can literally see time going by!

See if you can spot our VIP visitors and also some strange goings-on with a calendar?!  There was something very fishy going on there…

Wythall Radio Club’s two days with the G100RSGB call sign is now over and we thank all stations for their contacts with us and their kind words about our operation.

We made around 2250 contacts in our time with the call sign, beating our self-imposed target of 2000. Our logs are taking a little longer to collate as we are cross-checking and merging 6 separate stations worth of logs to make sure final totals are totally accurate (…and we have day jobs!) So please bear with us – logs will be made available to the RSGB asap!

Thank you to all the amateurs who made our activation such a success!